The rise of injection attacks in India’s cyber landscape

By Abhishek Srinivasan, Director Product Management at Array Networks

Over the last decade, India has witnessed enormous digital transformation. From remote villages to bustling metropolitan cities, digital services have seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Businesses are rapidly shifting their operations online to stay connected and competitive. This exponential digitalisation has led to rising cyber threats, with injection attacks emerging as one of the most dangerous and often overlooked.

Understanding Injection Attacks

Injection attacks occur when a cybercriminal sends malicious data into a system, interpreting it as legitimate command manipulating the system to access sensitive information to execute unauthorised actions without the user’s knowledge potentially leading complete system shutdowns and data theft.

Some of the most common forms of injection attacks used by these hackers these days include:

SQL Injection – In this cyber attack, malicious SQL code is inserted into an input field to manipulate a database. If successful, attackers can view, modify, or delete sensitive data gaining full access to the database. These attacks often exploit poorly secured web applications that do not properly validate user input.

Command Injection – It is a type of cyber attack where an attacker tricks a system into executing unauthorised operating system commands. Through this, the attacker can gain control over the system, access sensitive files, or even compromise the entire server.

LDAP Injection – The hacker manipulates input fields to inject malicious LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) statements into a query, can bypass authentication, access or modify directory data, and potentially gain unauthorised access to sensitive information.

Why India Is at Higher Risk

According to the CERT-In Annual Report 2023, India recorded over two 2,00,000 cyber incidents related to data breaches and hacking. In a country experiencing exponential growth in digital services across various sectors like banking, healthcare, education, and e-commerce, threat from these injection attacks are escalating at an alarming rate.

A major concern is the lack of robust cybersecurity framework in many Indian digital platforms. Small businesses, local apps and even some government websites are built without secure coding practices. This makes them easy targets for injection attacks.

With millions of users accessing banking apps, healthcare portals, loan apps, hospital portals, government websites, online shopping sites, and educational platforms which collect sensitive user data such as login credentials, personal IDs, financial details, and health records. Even a minor security flaw in any of these systems can be seriously exploited through an injection attack in a matter of few seconds.

Debunking the Hacker Myth

Contrary to popular belief, executing an injection attack doesn’t always require advanced technical expertise or extraordinary coding skills. Many hackers tend to look for weak spots in websites or apps and insert malicious code. If the system is not secure enough, this code can bypass filters, allowing attackers to manipulate data.

How to Prevent Injection Attacks

Injection attacks are preventable but only with the right precautions in place. Some of the key preventive measures include:

Input Validation: The first essential step to protect these attacks is to filter and validate all user inputs.  Never trust user input by default. Ensure every form field from login screens to search bars should be rigorously validated for suspicious or malicious data.

Secure Coding Practices: Developers must ensure secure coding practices and separate user input from system commands and database queries to prevent potential misuse. Utilising parameterised queries is a critical best practice for maintaining application security.

Web Application Firewalls (WAF): Installing a WAF serves as a proactive shield between the application and potential threats, filtering out malicious traffic before it can cause harm. WAF monitors and filters incoming traffic, blocking malicious payloads commonly used in injection attacks. By intercepting suspicious requests before they reach the application, a WAF significantly reduces the risk of SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other code-based exploits.

Regular Security Audits & Ethical Hacking: Regular security audits help identify vulnerabilities in application code, configurations, and infrastructure before attackers can exploit them. Ethical hacking, or penetration testing, simulates real-world attack scenarios allowing security professionals to actively probe for injection flaws and validate the effectiveness of defenses like input validation and parameterised queries. Together, these proactive measures strengthen an organisation’s security posture and reduce the risk of exploitation.

Source Link: https://www.expresscomputer.in/guest-blogs/the-rise-of-injection-attacks-in-indias-cyber-landscape/127276/

Website Link: https://www.arraynetworks.com/